


The Hostage

by OtherCat



Series: OtherCat's Snippets and Incomplete Fic [4]
Category: Andromeda
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2007-04-04
Updated: 2007-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-08 04:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OtherCat/pseuds/OtherCat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fifteen year old Seamus Harper is part of a hostage exchange in an alliance between Tyr and Brendan Lahey. Will the Alliance prosper? Will Harper figure out what the heck is going on?Pre-Slash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All the Comforts of Home

_Ubers ubers everywhere, and I can't afford to freak..._

It gave him chicken skin on his soul, being surrounded by this many Niets. Hundreds of people in the halls of this ship, to use the term "people" loosely. Bland, curious, hostile, indifferent, watching him walk down the corridor escorted by a small contingent of their leader's bodyguard, the self proclaimed "Admiral" himself at the fore of their little wedge.

Harper clutched his few belongings tighter to his body, and tried to concentrate on breathing, and putting one foot in front of another. Hostage, he thought numbly. He hoped Brendan knew what the hell he was doing. He hoped _he_ knew what the hell he was doing, since he'd actually agreed to this insane idea.

"Admiral" Tyr Anasazi stopped in front of a hatch, so abruptly, Harper nearly walked full tilt into the uber's broad back. A hand on his shoulder--one of the bodyguards--stopped him in his tracks. Anasazi looked amused. "These will be your quarters," he said, and keyed the hatch, which slid open without a sound.

Harper stared. Not what he was expecting. Big room, a bed that was actually a bed and not a bunk set in the wall, A table, a couple of chairs, another room that might be a washroom, a computer console desk with a monitor and keypad in the corner next to what looked like a small work station. "Holy shit..." he said in an undertone.

"Does it not meet your expectations, child?" Anasazi asked with considerable amusement. "I would have provided a lice infested pallet, and some manacles for atmosphere, but my first wife of course, vetoed my suggestions most firmly."

"Uh. Um. No, no this is fine, better than fine," Harper said quickly, feeling a little dazed. This room was big enough for a family of five to live in comfortably, and all five, mom, dad and kids, would have fit in the bed with room left over for two guests, if they were really friendly. He stepped into the room, and for lack of a better place to put his belongings, set them on the table. His beat up satchels looked grubby and out of place...he looked grubby and out of place in these quarters.

Anasazi entered the room, accompanied by one of his bodyguard, a tall, severe looking woman with light gold skin, short dark hair, and slight epicanthic folds in the corners of her eyes. "This is Eleanor Boleyn. She will be your bodyguard and guide. After you've...refreshed yourself, she'll give you a tour of the rest of the ship." Anasazi paused, looking even more amused. "You will be expected to present yourself for dinner in the officer's mess in five hours. Until then, Mr. Harper." The uber nodded slightly, a infintessimal tilt of his chin, then departed, accompanied by the rest of his bodyguard. The hatch whisked shut behind him.

Harper smiled weakly. "Um. Hi," he said.

The Niet--Eleanor--smiled slightly. "Hello," she said. "Feel free to make yourself comfortable--we have five hours, after all." She gave him brief a critical glance, but didn't make the half-expected comment about taking a bath. Not that a bath wouldn't be a good thing...Hot, clean water sounded pretty close to paradise right now, but...he glanced at his satchels, wondering if he could get away with taking them into the washroom with him.

Eleanor followed his glance, and looked amused. "I will be looking through your bags, sooner or later. It might as well be now." Eleanor walked over to the table where the satchels sat. She smiled again, a broader, more challenging look. Raise a fuss, go ahead, I dare you, she seemed to say.

"You won't find anything," Harper said quickly, then could have kicked himself at the tone of his voice. He sounded like a kid trying to get a piece of contraband past a older sister.

"If I don't find anything, I'll be very surprised," She said and started opening the nearest satchel.

Realizing he'd lost the battle, Harper retreated for the washroom. Lined up on a counter below the mirror and above the sink were five or six small bottles of what Harper recognized as various decon and delousing cleansers, sponges, a small red bag, a large blue plastic bag. Taped to the mirror were directions for their use, and instructions that included things like "Please place clothing and shoes in the blue bag, and all cleaning equipment and empty bottles in the red bag." Hanging on the towel bar was a pair of white pajama pants and shirt.

Grumbling under his breath, Harper followed the directions, and twenty minutes later, exited carrying the two bags. Eleanor was sitting at the table, reading a flexi. His satchels were nowhere in sight. "Whadidyoudowithmybags?" He asked in a angry rush.

Eleanor looked up. "I put them away," she said mildly. "Your tools and other odds and ends are in the closet. I sent your clothes down to the laundry, the chutes' over there," she nodded in their direction. "Red bag in the garbage chute, blue bag in the laundry chute."

"My clothes were clean!" He protested, but shoved the bags into their appropriate chutes. Then he went over to the closet, and made sure that his things were still in one piece.

"As compared to what?" Eleanor asked, looking amused.

"As compared to dirty clothes, which my clothes were not by the way."

"By your standards, perhaps they were," Eleanor said. "In any case, they still needed to be decontaminated. Just as you'll need to be vaccinated for anything you might come into contact with onboard the Andromeda." She smiled narrowly. "Just as anyone you might come in contact with has been vaccinated for any viruses you might be carrying."

He really couldn't argue with that, though he wanted to. Instead, he went over to the computer console, and did a little exploration, seeing what he could, and couldn't get into.

The console had limited access to the ship's com-net, something called "the public record cache" which turned out to be an archive of the personal and family histories of crew members. There was also a university's worth of courses in everything from molecular biology, to military history. He made a half-hearted attempt to hack into other areas, but the ship's AI shocked him as a "friendly warning to keep your hands to yourself," which caused Eleanor to snicker.

"If you have any questions, I'll answer them, if I can," Eleanor said after a while.

Harper looked up. "What are you reading?" It was the first question that popped into his head. Other, more serious questions, they could wait.

Eleanor looked up from her flexi. "The New Gilded Age by Mirsada Sidney, a activist from Lemuria. It's about the Long Night, and the events that led up to it." Brief smile. "It's a very controversial book, it's been banned in at least twenty polities."

"Activist, huh? What's she's active against?"

Instead of replying directly, Eleanor scrolled down the flexi, then read aloud. "'All nations, all peoples, all sentient beings have within their mythology some form of a legend. A legend of a golden age of peace and prosperity. All nations, all peoples all sentient beings believe that they've fallen from some state of grace, and look with longing toward the past, when everyone was more noble, more wise and perfect than they are now. This feeling, this belief, is self delusion at it's best, complete idiocy at it's worst.'" Eleanor smiled briefly. "From the introduction. She makes a good case for blaming the Vedrans for the Long Night, which is why the book was banned."

"The Vedrans? But the Commonwealth was destroyed by the ubers--um, sorry, no offense."

"None taken." Quicksilver smile. "My indirect ancestors may be responsible for the Long Night, but it was Vedran arrogance and--let's call it vanity--that destroyed the Commonwealth."

It was almost funny hearing a uber accuse another species of "arrogance." Words along the lines of "pot, kettle," were aimed and ready to fire when the Andromeda's hologram appeared, directly between them. "Sorry to interrupt the debate, but Freya wants to meet our guest," the AI said, looking not the least bit sorry. The hologram looked at him critically. "But not in pajamas. Find something presentable for him."

"Of course," Eleanor said calmly, and stood up. "Tell Freya we'll be in to see her within half an hour."

The hologram froze for an instant, then nodded. "Done," she said, and disappeared.

"Your clothes should be ready, and delivered here in ten minutes," Eleanor said. "I think your leather jacket, black trousers and gray shirt and leather boots will qualify as 'presentable' I suggest you wear them."

"What, you're not only my 'bodyguard' you're also my fashion consultant? And who's Freya?"

Eleanor smirked. "Given your taste in clothes, child, you're in desperate need of one. Freya is the Admiral's junior wife, so be on your best behavior."

Harper bristled at being called "child" twice in one day, but at the same time felt a slight easing of tension. Ubers who called you "child" were less likely to treat you like something they'd just scraped off their steel toed boots. It also meant they were likely to underestimate you even more than they would if you were just a "kludge." He tried to project "harmless kid" and ran his fingers through his hair. "Yeah, well, if you want me to look 'presentable' I'm going to need to fix my hair."

"We'll get you something later," Eleanor promised with an amused look.

Harper kept up a steady barrage of questions on the way to his "interview", partly out of curiosity, mostly as a way to keep the itty bitty critter in his skull from dancing a mazurka on the fight/flight button. Eleanor's answers were evasive or circular, depending on their level of security, which was about what he'd expected, so no harm, no foul. "So, where's this 'interview' taking place?" Harper asked as they entered a lift.

"A small, dark room, with one very bright light," Eleanor said with such a matter of fact tone that it actually took Harper a moment to realize that she was joking.

"Because you want to put me at ease by providing me with familiar surroundings, right?"

A very faint smirk. "Exactly." The lift doors opened and they exited, moving aside so that a woman accompanying a teen on crutches could get in. The kid was missing a left foot and maybe six inches of leg. As inured as he was to seeing people with maiming, crippling injuries, he couldn't help but wince in pained sympathy.

"Leg trap," Eleanor said once the doors of the lift had closed. "Primitive, but effective booby trap."

Harper winced, imagining a toothy, steel jawed trap closing on his own leg. "Ouch."

"Yes," Eleanor said, any latent humour in her voice fled. She continued down the hall, nodding a greeting to the occasional crewman passing by. After the fifth or sixth such occurance, Harper's Earth-trained instincts stopped screeching "duck and cover," so he was almost calm and collected when his heart stopped.

Anasazi's junior wife was another gorgeous blue eyed blonde. She was maybe and inch or two taller than Medea-Desiree, and maybe a few years younger, though it was hard to tell with ubers.

She was also pregnant. Very pregnant.

Harper stopped so suddenly that Eleanor stepped on his heels. He was barely aware of the fact that he was now in some kind of infirmary, his wide eyes were anchored on the full-moon curve of Freya's belly. You almost never saw a Drago-Kasov woman (the few female Drago soldiers he'd seen didn't count; by Drago custom, they weren't "women," just "female.") and you never EVER saw a pregnant one. He'd always assumed that ubers kept their wives under lock and key.

"Maybe the small, dark room with one bright light would have been a better idea," Eleanor muttered, and nudged Harper further into the room. Harper was too stunned to protest.

Harper blinked. "Wha?" He said, feeling as if his head had been removed from his shoulders, inflated with helium, then reattached it to his shoulders.

With string.

"Freya, This is Seamus Zelazny Harper, who from what I've seen so far is usually more articulate than this," Eleanor said with not quite mock consternation in her voice. "Harper, this is Freya."

"Uh...pleased to meet you, your ladyship?" Harper asked, kicking his vocal cords into gear.

"How polite," Freya murmured with a faint smirk. "I'd say it was a like pleasure to meet you, but won't given the circumstances."

The Nietszchean's words were half-teasing--and half not, though the edge in her tone didn't seem to be aimed at him, so Harper relaxed. Slightly. "Brendan won't let anything happen to your co-wife," he said in what he hoped was a diplomatically reassuring tone. "The alliance between The League and the Sons of Liberty is too important."

"Your cousin may be in for a surprise if he plans on wrapping Medea in insulation foam. I've no doubts that she'll insist--if she hasn't already--on a position in The Sons of Liberty," Freya said with considerable amusement.

Harper tried to wrap his mind around that possibility but couldn't, quite. His only impression of Medea Cymry was of a small-for-a-uber blond in a gray and lavender gown. Maid Marion meet Mad Max, you have nothing in common. With no bone-spurs, she could easily pass for human though..."What did she do in the League of Iargalon?" Harper asked, though he already had an idea.

"Organized cells. Spoke to people of like beliefs who would be otherwise intimidated by the League."

She seemed about to say more, when someone else entered the room. The new person was a vaguely humanoid female with lavender skin and reddish hair. She was carrying what looked like a vaccination kit, one that had been possibly lifted from some charity organization or another. He thought he could see the logo for Earth Relief stamped on the lower corner of the battered grayish box. For some reason, she almost dropped the box when she saw him, making a little squeak of surprise. "Oh, he's--!"

"Seamus Zelazny Harper," Freya inserted smoothly, moving away from the exam table she'd been leaning against. "Brendan Lahey's cousin," she looked at Harper. "This is Trance Gemini. She's our enviromental control officer, and the chief of our medical department. She'll be giving you a check up, and adminstering your vaccinations."

The alien, who wasn't much taller than Harper, seemed to compose herself. "Hi, just have a seat," she said, nodding to the exam table Freya had just vacated. Harper obeyed the request, though not without a little trepidation. Not because of Trance, who seemed bubbly, sweet and friendly, and understood his oddball references and jokes even better than his own cousin in some ways, but because of Anasazi's wife and his "bodyguard".

He wondered what kind of message Anasazi might be trying to send with all of this. If there was a message. And if there was it a message that Harper was in no personal danger, so he should relax, or was the message more; "we don't consider you a threat, kludge." If either case was true, what could he do to use it to his advantage?

Possibly he was overanalyzing this anyway.

Most of the questions Freya asked while Trance poked and prodded him were personal. She asked about his family, his parents, his age, the exact degree of relationship he shared with Brendan, if he'd had lovers, what seemed like his entire health history, if he was a father yet, if he'd had experience with raising younger relatives. "Can I ask where all these questions are going?" Harper asked after having to expand on how his dad had treated his mom, followed by how both his parents had responded to childhood misbehavior.

"You will be interacting closely with my family," Freya said. "That will include my son once he's born, and our six year old daughter. You are a fifteen year old boy who has grown up on a slave planet--can you see where my questions go now?"

"Ma'am, I wouldn't hurt a kid," Harper said, and tried not to be offended, while wondering what the hell 'interacting closely' meant. "If you don't want me around, I'll stay out of your way."

Freya smiled thinly. "There is no place you could go on this ship that would be 'out of my way'. As a hostage you're a member of my household, and as a minor child, you are under my authority."

"Oh."


	2. Emphasis on the Enlightened

Tyr remembered being sixteen, and having his entire world end.

Tyr remembered being seventeen, and hating everything that lived in general, and the man who'd appointed himself his teacher in specific.

Longinus had been easy to hate. Superior, smug, taunting Tyr at every turn, forcing him to think, _teaching_ him to think.

_("Enlightened self-interest, Tyr," Longinus would say, time and time again. "Emphasis on the enlightened.")_

Ten years later, he still hated Longinus, but at least he could understand the purpose that drove the man, though he still didn't--quite--share it, not the way Medea did. Tyr had tolerated Longinus' obsession, his insistance on living by an archaic code of Nietszchean conduct, in interest of furthering his own goals.

Medea had been inspired by it, had drunk in Longinus' every word as if she'd been dying of thirst in a desert. Tyr might be an Admiral, self proclaimed or otherwise, but it had been Medea who had created the League of Iargalon. Medea who organized, Medea who mediated. Medea who argued with him passionately, and when necessary punctured what she was pleased to refer to as his swollen male ego, usually with a well timed sucker punch. Medea believed in the Mission. Tyr believed in Medea.

Less than three days since the exchange of hostages, and it felt like years, even though she'd spoken to him just hours before. Unfortunately (for his Husband's heart, if not his Admiral's head) the content of her message had mostly involved Brendan Lahey's efforts to at least open communications between the various opposing factions and sub factions of the various Earth resistance movements, rather than conversation of a more romantic nature.

According to the information provided both by League operatives and Longinus himself, there were probably more than fifty seperate "resistance movements" on the North American continent alone, some of whom were actually little more than thieves and killers. None of these groups could agree on much of anything except perhaps a mutual hatred of all Magog and Nietszcheans. Medea had already picked up a quaint phrase from Brendan Lahey on the subject; "like herding cats!"

Tyr had just been relieved that the number of atrocities had been kept to a minimum, no matter what the damned Drago-Kasov had said in their damned press-release. That there had been atrocities--on both sides--was the natural and predictable byproduct of an uprising. The first order of business after taking control of the Drago-Kasov bases and stations had been to let human and Perseid run organizations like Earth Relief and Pax Infinitum set up operations like medical centers, refugee camps and deportation flights, using the various Drago-Kasov space ports as bases of operations.

On the Dragan side, morale had been so universally low that the instant the first L-5 bases and orbital platforms had been captured by League ships, there had been an insurrection among the ground forces that had leveled the enclaves and estates of many of the higher ranking civilian Dragan officials and military officers. _Those_ Dragans, with small groups of human collaberators had forted up after turning loose "...all indentured personnel and detainees" and had utterly refused to be deported. The insurrectionists hadn't _quite_ gone so far as to claim common cause with the League, but they'd also made it clear that they no longer considered themselves Dragan. Given the reports, he strongly suspected a social mitosis was occurring--time would tell if the blastocyst would eventually become an neonate, or would be miscarried ... or require abortion.

The door to their quarters whisked open, and Freya entered, moving with the careful awkwardness of the pregnant toward her favorite chair, an antique replica "Lay-Z-Boy" black leather recliner. "Your son is performing katas," she accused as she slowly settled herself into the chair, and pulled the lever that released the footrest.

Tyr smiled. "So he's my son when he annoys you?" He left his workstation and knelt by Frey's feet, removing her shoes and socks.

"When he _kicks_ me. You're Medea's husband when you annoy _me_." She wiggled her toes at him, and smirked. Tyr laughed, and began to rub her feet.

"How is he?" Tyr inquired. "Aside from his martial arts practice?"

Freya rubbed her belly. "He's responding very well to the nano suite. We'll need to send Elsbett a gift, to thank her for the design specs."

Tyr glanced up at Freya, but didn't pursue the matter. The only question he could ask would be 'can we trust her?' The answer as he knew from past experience, would be contradictory, conditional, and subject to change without notice, and in alignment with some variety of logic that would most likely make his head hurt. Presented with the mystery of feminine diplomacy, Tyr continued rubbing his junior wife's feet, while he tried to think of a suitably neutral question. "What do you think she might like?"

"One less Matriarch," Freya said, amused. The Sabra and Jaguar Matriarchs loathed each other, for all their _public_ courtesies, and seemed bent on driving Elsbett to distraction. "Failing that, I think I'll send her the design spec for the rose-apple Trance dug up in the Andromeda's public archive."

Tyr nodded. "That plant was an amazing find," he said. It had been the creation of a Nietszchean medical officer who'd "dabbled" in biogenetics and botany as a hobby. The rose-apple hadn't been a hybrid, despite the name. Instead, the hobbyist had tweaked its genetic structure, causing it to grow hips the size of apples, and correspondingly, strengthened the branches so that they could support the fruit. The scent of a rose-apple in full bloom, in combination with the citrussy undertone of its ripening red fruit was almost dizzying.

Freya made a small sound of either agreement or pleasure, and flexed her feet. "The child failed the exams. Every last one."

Tyr tilted a glance upward at the change of subject, and guessed what "child" Freya was referring to. Harper. "That's not surprising, considering the conditions in which he was reared," he said carefully.

Freya hissed. "He failed the _literacy_ exam."

Tyr said nothing. Freya was still learning, and this was part of the process. (And oh, how he hated that he was using the much loathed training methods that Longinus had used on him.)

Freya hissed again. She might have slapped the top of his head, but her reach was foreshortened by the expanse of her belly. "There are damned few illiterates in a technologically advanced society that needs _literate_ workers you dolt! The least household servant must be able to follow written instructions and simple diagrams and maps--using voice and icons only goes so far, and you end up spending more time and money creating systems that a illiterate can use, as opposed to a literate person."

"That would apply if Earth's infrastructure was intact--but in this case--"

"In this case nothing," Freya said. "He did it on _purpose_. If the AI hadn't been watching his eye movements and heartbeat, he might even have gotten away with it," She growled and pulled in on herself, arms crossed over her chest, like a sulky child. Tyr tried very hard not to laugh at the expression, or the mental comparison. "Medea was right, I'd never seen a case of it happening, but she was _right_."

"You've never seen a human from a slave world deliberately fail the IPSBE," Tyr said with careful emphasis. You've never _seen_. He didn't explain why someone would deliberately fail such a test--to do so would insult Freya's considerable intelligence. Concealing knowledge was the best way to gain an advantage over an enemy...and a slave's natural enemy was his master.

"This was the ASBKE, though," Freya said, not even making a serious attempt to argue.

"Would the child understand, or even care about the difference?" For the child, there would _be_ no difference between the Indentured Personel Skill Base Evaluation and the Augmented Skill Base and Knowledge Evaluation He could only imagine what the man might say of either test. Until he had seen the child, Tyr hadn't really believed that the man Longinus spoken of so often, the man whose journals and notes Tyr had studied--artifacts of timelines that would now never be--existed.

Seeing Brendan Lahey's cousin in the flesh for the first time had been like seeing a ghost.

_("That previous time is not useful to us, as a predictor of events. Be aware however that people will still make the same kinds of choices." _

_"Destiny?" Tyr had said scornfully. _

_"**Character**. You are the same person Tyr, given different choices.") _

Freya grumbled, her words indistinct, though Tyr could make a guess at the content. _Ungrateful kludge. Misbred brat,_ indignant comments about pearls and swine.

"Of course you're right," Tyr said when Freya finally wound down. His bland tone was a marvel of sarcasm. "He must be an idiot."

"I hate you," Freya said, without heat. "Don't think I can't _hear_ you smirking, you bas--" Freya squeaked as Tyr twisted her big toe. "Quarter, _quarter_!" She shouted, and thumped his shoulder with her free foot.

Tyr snickered, and released Freya's foot. He rocked, levered himself to his feet, and faced her. "So you admit I'm right?"

Freya rolled her eyes. "Yes, you're right. A horrible, terrible husband, but right."

Tyr gave Freya a tragic look. The hand to his heart was probably a bit much. "Am I? How can I make amends?"

"_Horrible,_" Freya said. "You sound like someone from a _murasaki_ novel." She giggled at the exaggerated look of affront Tyr threw her. She straighted her back (as much as the chair or her belly would allow) and gave him a regal, _imperial_ sneer. "_You_ can speak to the boy," She said with a sniff, and dismissed him with a airy wave of her hand. Tyr gave her a look of mock-dismay, then threw off the teasing look. "I will," he said. The sudden uncertainty he felt rang loudly in his ears.

Freya gave him a fond look. "Idiot. The boy is not the man, but what the man may _become._"

"In a normal situation that would be true," Tyr said. "But I know the man he _was._"

"As Longinus knew you?" Tyr said nothing, and Freya sighed. "Go, you exasperate me," she said. "Talk to the boy."

Tyr nodded and left the room. Freya's words made sense of course, but sense had little to do with what Tyr felt. In two other times, Tyr had died so that Harper could live. In both times, Harper was the true Angel of Death, no matter who gave the final order. Freya knew these things intellectually of course, but she hadn't spent a significant amount of time studying the choices and decisions of her alternate selves.

_("What is there to learn?" She'd asked. "You came to me, my kinsmen were fools, and I chose you to be my husband. Simple!")_&lt;!-- end story --&gt;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terms:
> 
> 1\. Indentured Personel Skill Base Evaluation (IPSBE): S.A.T for slaves--because even scut-work in a high tech society requires basic ejamacation and higher.  
> 2\. Augmented Skill Base and Knowledge Evaluation (ASBKE): S.A.T for ubers--because some ubers are smarter than others, and they want to weed out the competition.  
> 3\. Murasaki novel/play: Romance novels or the equivalent of serial soaps with stylized dialog, and long complicated, overlapping plots, and stories within stories. Predominately a Nietszchean genre.


	3. Interlude: Sedna

Gar out of Helen by Justinian's messenger was a human girl whose arms ended in stumps at the wrist. "What I want to know is," she said flatly. "Am I gonna get my goddamn hands back? In one piece?"

"You will, it's just a security precaution," Brendan said. They'd also scanned her for hidden explosives and wires. Ubers didn't usually use walking bombs, but most ubers weren't much like Gar--A Dragan vet who'd been born and raised on Earth. Despite having conquered Earth, the Dragans had never made a serious attempt at colonizing it. Most Dragan enclaves on Earth were purely military environments--no wives or children. The high ranking officers and the alphas had kept their wives and children in the Mars habitats, or in Luna City on the Moon.

"Yeah, really? Looks more like a case of 'fuck with the crip', to me," the girl said belligerently. "But never mind that. I'm Sedna, and right now, I'm Gar's mouthpiece. He says as a sign of good faith, he's released the detainees and the slave-techs. He says he's shut down the military brothels and snuff parlors and strung up all the pimps and babysellers," the girl began, her voice falling into something like a street preacher's cadence.

"He says he stands with Earth and a whole lotta shit about history--that this coast was the birthplace of a revolution, and that what was done here is a child of that revolution. He wishes that all such revolutions shall prosper, and that he has the will to see it done. He says he wants to ally with you. He says he wants to meet with you to discuss this. He reminds you that when you laid siege, he opened the gates, that when you set fire to the enclaves, he cut the throats of your enemies, and that when you rose up, he was standing beside you. He says he's as much of a son of Earth as you, and some more shit about history, and his Name." The girl rattled to a stop, but wasn't quite done yet. "He says his whole name is Gustavus Adolphus Rex--and that's all."

"I'm going to need to think about this," Brendan said.

The girl shrugged. "I can wait. Just give me my hands back, so I can scratch my nose, it itches."

The girl was escorted from the room by two guards. Brendan gave it a few beats before glancing at his seconds--and his "political advisor," Medea Cymry. "What do you think?"

"Gotta big voice for such a little thing," Kieran O'Brien said with a faint grin.

"Be serious."

"Right. We know this "Gar" guy is one of the major leaders of the Dragan insurrection. The others are a Dragan in China calling himself Sun Wukong, and a female Dragan named Rhiannon on Mars. We're pretty sure they're all working together, but with Ubers it's hard to tell. No offense," Kieran said to Medea.

"None taken," Medea said with a polite smile Brendan couldn't help but tag as 'charming.' "Knowing which way the wind is blowing is an important survival skill."

"Anyway," Kieran continued. "We also know that their people actively aided or at least stood out of the way of the Sons of Liberty and the other Movements. After the battle was over they pulled in and forted up and haven't budged since."

"And they 'stand with Earth' whatever that might mean," Moira said. "Think the names are supposed to be significant? Since our girl made a point of mentioning history and Gar's whole name." She glanced a question at Medea.

"Possibly," Medea said. "Rhiannon was a goddess falsely accused of murdering her own son. Sun Wukong was a demon of Earth that challenged Heaven. These names point toward a certain disaffection toward the status quo, if they're recently assumed. It's not uncommon--we have a strange reverence for names, and they tend to be statements of one kind or another." Medea paused thoughtfully for a moment, and then smiled "'Anasazi' means something like 'the people who aren't there anymore' I think. That the Anasazi were ritual cannibals was something my husband had not taken into consideration however."

"Seems like that would be a pretty good threat for your enemies," Kieran said.

"Perhaps, but would you want to inadvertantly compare yourself to the Magog, who certainly _are_ cannibals?"

She's scared out of her mind, is what she is. Not of the people, though. They won't shoot the messenger, even if she is a collaberator. There isn't a one of them who hasn't pasted on a submissive grin and done the dirty to keep body and soul together. That it's a little bit different for her won't even register.

It's the twisting maze of tunnels, and having been brought here blindfolded that has her spooked. Even now her heart is racing and she's holding off the panic, and working at keeping the fear off her face--she's good at that. If she concentrates on being angry _they fucking took her goddamn hands_ she's fine, and the faint trembling can be attributed to rage, not soul freezing terror.

Most nights she sleeps out on the balcony--sometimes even the roof--and only comes in if it rains or it was too cold to be outside. Gar hates it, doesn't approve at all, but doesn't stop her. Staying out at night had proven useful more than once, so he didn't say anything about it. Gar was all right, when he wasn't trying to be her father. The same degree of all right as some of the female ubers were all right, when they weren't trying to figure out if they were competing with her for Gar's attention, or pretending she was Gar's daughter, instead of a kludge.

Their leader himself brings her hands, sets them down on the rickety folding table and slides them over. He has the hesitant look of someone who can't decide if he should offer to help, or just keep his mouth shut. She doesn't give him a chance to offer. The first hand is a teeth-and-stump maneuver she's done so many times it's automatic. When everything is connected she puts on the second hand, and tightens up the connections for the first, then does the same for the second. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." Brendan Lahey sits down, and looks a question at her.

"They were crushed by a hammer," Sedna said. She flexes her hands to make sure nothing is wrong with them, and to work out some of the numbness that Gar says is psychosomatic. Gar doesn't know what he's talking about.

"Where are you from, orginally?" Brendan asks.

She shrugs. "Not sure. Some town near an enclave, that's all I know." The first thing she remembers, really remembers, is waking up at night, in an unfamiliar place that somehow felt safe. Gar's home, an apartment in a co-op run by veterans. Brendan doesn't need to know that, though. "I was just a kid when Gar took me in."

Brendan tilts an odd look at her. "Took you in?"

"Y'know, it's really not fair, you asking me questions and not telling me anything in return," Sedna says. She smiles, not quite flirtatious, and gets a smile in response.

"I think you know more about me, than I know about you," Brendan says.

"I know what the news services say, most of it isn't very flattering."

It's Brendan's turn to shrug. "I don't care how the message gets out, just that it does. I don't care if I get called a terrorist or a freedom fighter, just as long as people know what they've turned their backs on for so long."

"Gar says the same." _Find common ground, and work from there._ An offworld armsrunner had told her that, one of Gar's associates. For some reason she can see an echo of the guy's smile on Lahey's face.


	4. Look Who's Coming to Dinner

Tyr found the boy on the ship's observation deck. The boy's back was to the hatch, but Eleanor was seated only a few feet away, pretending to read a holo novel as she watched both boy and the exit. As he approached, Eleanor shut down her holo novel and rose to her feet.

Earth was an, opal disk viewed through the wide screen-ports, large swathes of cloud cover parting to reveal black seas or sections of continent. The current view was of Eurasia, specifically, a region called China. "I'm trying to see if you can really see the Wall from space," the boy said without turning around.

"I believe there's a storm system obscuring it," Tyr said, indicating a swirl of clouds. "Otherwise I believe that it would be visible, with only minor magnification." Tyr paused deliberately, and moved closer, so that he was standing nearly shoulder to shoulder with the human. Harper went very still--the tensed coil of a small predator, Tyr thought, not the muscle locked freeze of a rabbit or cavy. "Other things are more difficult to conceal," Tyr noted casually. "Though I must congratulate you for the effort."

There was an amused snort from Eleanor at that, and Tyr fancied, a slight flinch from the boy. Tyr gave Eleanor a meaningful look, and she quietly excused herself, moving just out of earshot.

Harper gave him a sidelong look. "If I didn't know better," Harper said. "I'd say you were paying me a compliment."

"Perhaps you don't know as much as you think you do," Tyr said. "We have however established a baseline."

"Which brings us to the question of why you need a baseline in the first place," Harper said, turning to face him.

As he had been the first time he'd laid eyes on the boy, Tyr was startled by by how young Harper was--the absence of a dataport was particularly disturbing--but not as disturbing as hearing and seeing the younger reflection of a man he knew. Tyr smirked. "To create an educational program suited to the individual needs of the student," Tyr said, quoting more or less accurately from the introduction of the Augmented Skill Base and Knowledge Evaluation test, which made the boy glare.

"Because ubers are all about providing free education to kludges," Harper said sarcastically.

"Nothing is free, Seamus," Tyr said, and smiled at the murderous glare the human shot him before he regained something resembling composure. "Nothing is free. If I provide you with an opportunity to learn, if I give you what I think is your heart's wish, be sure I expect something for it."

The boy tensed. "What do you think I want?" Harper asked.

"I think you want knowledge, whole and complete, not just the bits and pieces you've scrabbled after all your life. I think you want the skills that knowledge will teach you. I think you have the will to learn, and the will to become greater than you are." Tyr made a bet with himself that Harper would take offense at the latter half of the last sentence--humans usually did.

The boy gave him a narrow-eyed, suspicious look, but said, "and what do _you_ want, Admiral?"

"For now, I want you to learn," Tyr said, and then smiled. "And of course, to join my family for dinner." He turned slightly, indicating with a gesture that the boy should accompany him.

No one had told him anything about precedence, there had been no point where anyone had said, "and you will walk two steps behind the Generalissimo, kludge." So Harper walked right beside Admiral Anasazi as they went down the corridor. The Admiral kept giving him little sideways looks that Harper couldn't quite read, but he didn't seem offended. Amused, maybe.

Harper wasn't sure of what to make of any of this. They treated him like a kid, and they treated him with a kind of absentminded tolerance that Harper wasn't used to getting from ubers--or most humans, except for family. It wasn't what he was used to--and he couldn't trust it at face value, because he didn't have any idea of what might be behind it.

The first night he'd been a guest of honor at a semi-formal dinner, where he'd been introduced to Anasazi's command staff, and about a dozen ship captains. He'd been tongue-tied and overwhelmed throughout, though he'd desperately tried not to show it. The second day had involved more inoculations, a more extensive tour of the ship--and the test that he'd done his very best to fail in the most spectacular fashion possible. It had been the last straw in what had been a very strange couple days, and the test had been like a shoe dropping; _let's see how useful you can be to us, kludge._ That it was the exam for Niets entering university just made it that much more insulting, somehow.

Harper would have liked to have bounced some questions off of Eleanor--and how weird was it that he'd actually _considered_ that? His bodyguard however, seemed to have places to go and people to see, because she gave him a once over, told him to "be good," saluted Anasazi, and continued down the hall. Harper was torn between running after her and begging her not to leave him, and indignation at being treated like a kid. Again.

Meanwhile, the door was open, and Anasazi was standing there, apparently waiting for him to go first. Harper could hear Freya's voice--it sounded like she was reciting something. Harper self consciously straightened his shirt and walked into Anasazi's family quarters. The main room was softly lit with comfortable looking couches and chairs set in a rough circle. Off to the left was tiny dining area, and a galley. Freya was seated in a reclining chair, reading from flexi made to look like a hard copy book. Sitting at her feet was a little girl with medium brown skin, and short, frizzy hair. Both looked up as they entered, the little girl curiously, Freya with narrowed eyes. "I'll prepare dinner," Anasazi murmured, and retreated for the galley.

"Have a seat, Seamus," Freya said, pointing to the couch. "Come meet my daughter."

"Yes'm." Harper immediately sat down where indicated. He had a feeling he was in trouble, if the look Freya was giving him was any indication.

"This is Anne by Medea out of Tyr, Kodiak of Kodiak. Anne, this is Seamus Zelazny Harper, cousin of your Father's new friend, Brendan Sturgeon Lahey. Seamus will be your brother while your Mother is away," Freya said seriously to the little girl, then prompted, "what do we say?"

_Brother? Friend?_ Harper head spun. He wouldn't have expected them to sugar-coat the situation, though it was a better introduction than, _"this is a kludge we're holding hostage in exchange for your mother's safety."_

"Hello Seamus pleased to meet you?" The little girl asked Freya.

"Tell _him_ that, not me," Freya said. The little girl repeated her greeting--to Harper this time.

"Um. Pleased to meet you," Harper said, and the kid grinned at him.

"I'm going to have a baby brother!" Anne announced.

"Mazel Tov."

"Go read your book," Freya said, handing the storybook over to the kid. "I need to speak to Seamus." When Anne had left the room, Freya gave him another narrow-eyed look. "Do you remember what I told you in the infirmary a few days ago, Seamus Zelazny Harper?"

"That you were in charge because I was a minor child," Harper said, making air quotes. He knew he should be trying to make nice to the uber, smile and nod and all that, maybe even apologize--he figured she was mad at him for the same reason Anasazi had his little chat--but perversely, he wanted to do the opposite. Somewhere at the back of his head there was a voice that said, _being a minor never stopped you uber bastards from kicking me in the teeth. Why are you even pretending otherwise now?_

"I said you were a member of my household. And that you were under my authority--which in some ways does mean I'm in charge. It does not mean that you are a kludge," Freya said.

"Wow, I'm not? You mean I'm _second class_ instead of third now?"

Freya stared at him silently for a moment before tilting her head back against the headrest of her chair. "Tyr, I forgive you for not wanting to speak to him."

"The past few days have been trying for him, I'm sure." Anasazi sounded amused.

"You could always send me to my room," Harper said snidely.

"But that's what you want, isn't it?" Freya asked with a faint smirk. "To be sent away, so you don't have to be on guard and watch your words."

"Maybe I just don't want to eat with a bunch of goddamn ubers," Harper snapped, responding to the condescending tone of voice more than anything, and probably proving her point. Not that he cared. Really. Then he heard what he'd said, and swallowed. "I--um." He heard the door open behind him.

"Do you want to leave?" Freya asked in a completely different tone of voice. "Eleanor wouldn't mind bringing dinner to your room."

Harper almost took her up on the offer--was almost out the door, and damn the consequences--but at the same time, he realized that doing so would be a mistake. "No. No Ma'am," Harper said, and stayed put. "Sorry." He heard the door shut, and he clenched his hands to hide that they were shaking.

"Accepted. As I was saying, you are a member of my household--and it's my duty to evaluate your abilities. The League was founded by Niets, but we recruit and train both humans and Nietszcheans. As a officer of the League, it's my duty to train you to the best of my ability."

"I'm not a member of the League," Harper couldn't help but point out.

"And my wife is not a member of the Sons of Liberty," Anasazi interjected as he exited the galley kitchen. "Your cousin however has accepted her as an advisor. Dinner is almost ready, Seamus. If you intend to stay, perhaps you could help set the table."

Dinner was a curry noodle dish with meat and vegetables. The conversation wandered between a recent call to Medea, a tele-conference between Freya and Rhiannon, the Drago female who had led the Martian insurrection, and what was referred to as a "communication breakdown" between two branches of the HLA. The Admiral and Freya both dragged him into the conversation, quizzing him with the baffled curiosity of those raised to atheism about the religious conflicts between the various resistance movements in Asia. Since most of the resistance movements in the Americas weren't very religous--except for the Saints, who were a bunch of crazy fuckers, and the Laveau Society, who were crazy fuckers and absolutely brilliant monkeywrenchers--Harper wasn't able to offer much of an opinion.

After dinner was more talking. Medea and Anasazi briefed him on the various courses he had been assigned to take, with occasional commentary from the AI. They wanted him to take engineering, chemistry and programming, a self defense class, and anatomical robotics. The way they talked it up, you'd think the Andromeda Ascendant was a university instead of a warship. There were _study groups_\--and Harper's head was spinning by the end of it.


	5. A Few Introductions

_It was cold, so at some point they decided to warm up with a ballgame. Camp 238 was one of the older ones that had a ball court kept in reasonably good condition--the Dragans used it in occasional press-releases to counter the accusations of sentient-rights violations from reporters and relief workers. Harper was bundled up in sweaters, his hands and feet wrapped in rags, face raw with cold, his lungs aching, but clear for a change, and the air was cold, with a bitter aftertaste, but it wasn't too smoggy. The people he was playing with kept changing, and some of them were dead, but this didn't seem odd. _

_Harper snatched the ball from Declan, and tossed it to Brendan. Brendan caught it and scored, but then Siobhan had the ball, which she passed to a girl Harper didn't know. Harper moved in, but the girl shot right over his shoulder. It occurred to him that Siobhan and Declan had died a long time ago, but this fact wasn't disturbing, somehow. Harper spun about, but slipped on the muddy blacktop. His hands and shoes and legs were covered in red, but he had the ball. _

_When he stood, he was alone, except for the girl whose name he didn't know. A girl with no eyes, just empty holes in her face that wept blood. Layarona. Harper's heart stopped, his feet frozen to the ground. "I know your name," the girl who wasn't a girl said, and Bloody Mary's clawed hands reached for him._

Harper woke with a start, his hand scrambled for a shiv (not that a shiv would have done a bit of good.) His heart pounded, and a scream battered at the back of his throat, coming out as a strangled, too-loud gasp.

"You still have thirty minutes before you're scheduled to wake up, Seamus," the ship's AI said, blinking into view at the foot of Harper's bed. She didn't **say** _"I woke you up because you were having a nightmare,"_ but it was implied. "You can get up now, or sleep in."

"I'll get up now, ma'am," Harper said awkwardly, not knowing what to think about being monitored. It was one thing to be pretty sure you were being watched, and another thing to _know_ you were.

The AI smiled. "I'm not a ma'am, I work for a living. Call me Andromeda, or Rommie. You have messages in your mailbox," Andromeda said, and faded from view. "If you have any questions, just ask."

Harper nodded, and rubbed the sand out of his eyes before heading into the bathroom. He deliberately avoided looking in the mirror. "I am too old to believe that stuff," Harper mumbled. It didn't help. Burn a candle for the Blue Lady, remember the names of your dead, so they'll remember you. Tell the stories, and never let the grown ups or the ubers hear. All the hundred and one little phrases and rituals to ward off Bloody Mary, or to call on the Blue Lady. He'd grown up hearing the secret stories, and however much he knew told himself he was "too old," some part of him still insisted on believing.

If Bloody Mary knew your name, you were going to die.

Harper took a quick shower that woke him up the rest of the way, and he finally registered that Eleanor hadn't come back after last night. "Andromeda?" He asked experimentally as he pulled on a pair of pants.

"Yes?" Rommie replied immediately.

"Where is Eleanor? I mean, she wasn't here when I woke up." The way she had been since he'd come here. He managed not to say, _"She's coming back, right?"_ He wanted to try to avoid sounding pathetic.

"She's taking this shift off. Did you want to speak to her?"

Apparently he couldn't avoid sounding pathetic no matter what. "No, not necessary, I was just wondering." He finished getting dressed and headed over to the console, and sat down. The mailbox had two messages in it. One was the password for the "apprentice-crew" database account that had been set up for him, and the other was from Tyr.

_At 14:30, please report to debriefing room C. As long as the Andromeda Ascendant is in orbit around Earth, you'll be able to have weekly conversations with your cousin._

The "as long as the Andromeda Ascendant is in orbit" gave Harper a shiver. He'd known in his head that he'd probably be leaving Earth--and the solar system--because the League flagship had places to go that were other than here, but the note made it seem more real. He'd be the first Harper to go offworld--in something other than the cargo hold of a slaver-- for generations. An exciting thought, and a terrifying one--like the whole universe had suddenly opened up for him.

He was doing some exploring of the various databases when he heard a chime from the direction of the door. "Hello, Seamus Harper?" A female voice asked. "This is Beka Valentine, I've kind of been designated the spokesperson for the study group. Can I come in?"

Harper hesitated for a minute, and flushed at a very quiet, "all clear," from Rommie. He keyed the door open and stood as a tall red-headed human girl a few years older than he was entered the room. She looked around, and grinned.

"Hey, your room is bigger than ours," she said, but didn't sound put out by it.

"One of the benefits of being a political prisoner," Harper said flippantly, then winced. "Um. Not that the alliance isn't the best thing that's happened to Earth in a really, really long time."

"I'm not the Thought Police, kid," Beka said, and handed him a comp pad. "This has your schedule and all the books you'll need. Don't lose it, infect it, break it, or store porn on it. Any questions?"

"I'm still kind of stuck on 'study group,'" Harper said, which made Beka laugh.

"The League apprenticeship program's kinda modeled after the old High Guard Academy," Beka explained. "All the apprentices are divided up into squads with a mix of gender and age ranges." As they headed down the hall, Beka filled him in on how things were run, and gave him a birds-eye view of how the League was founded. (It turned out that Beka Valentine was the daughter of the guy who'd initially found the Andromeda Ascendant, Ignatius Valentine.)

A tall Nietszchean boy with dark skin and startlingly blue eyes met them at the entrance of the mess. "Hello, Beka, indoctrinating our newest recruit?" The boy's eyes widened as he spotted Harper. "How old are you supposed to be?" The boy demanded. "You can't be older than ten!"

Beka stepped on Harper's foot and gave him a warning look before he could say anything. "He's fifteen--which you knew," Beka said. "Seamus, this is Enki Parthian, one of the _other kids_ in the study group."

"You are only a year older than I," Enki protested with half-hearted indignation.

"Yeah, a year older, and lightyears faster, 'Parting Shot,'" Beka teased cheerfully. "This is Seamus Harper."

Harper finger-waved. "Hey. Call me Harper, most people do," he said, because being called "Seamus" all the time was beginning to give him a complex.

Enki grinned. "Pleased to meet you," he said, then to Beka, "the twins have our table saved--they've also had nearly ten cans of Sparky between them."

"Great," Beka said disgustedly. "What did they do, _inject_ it?" She shook her head. "Never mind, c'mon kids, lets get into the chow line before the pastries are all gone," Beka said, and not-so-subtly herded the both of them into the correct direction. There weren't a lot of people in the mess, and most of them were around Harper's age or Beka's. "Apprentice crew," Beka explained when Harper asked about it. "We usually eat an hour before or an hour after full crewmembers depending what shift we're on."

"How many apprentice crew are on this ship?" Harper said as he moved into line. He noticed that while most of the people in the room were ubers, there were also a few humans mixed in. It was slightly surreal. The food had been set out buffet style, and he loaded his tray with whatever looked interesting. Beverage options were cans of soda, bottles of milk and fruit juice, and tea or coffee.

"Thirty, fifteen on first shift--which is this one, and another fifteen on second shift," Enki answered.

Beka led the way over to their table, and Beka introduced Harper to the twins. Ereshkigal and Inanna were cute Niet girls with short dark hair and tilted green eyes. They were cheerful, hyper, and very enthusiastic about physics, engineering, and explosions. Harper somehow found himself embroiled in a conversation about incendiary devices that lasted all the way to their first class. Aside from the schoolwork, he found out that Beka was already a licensed pilot, that the twins were outrageous flirts and that Enki spoke English--or at least, could swear in it.

14:30 rolled around and Beka escorted him to conference room C, where Tyr was waiting with a screen set up. Harper wondered what, if anything Tyr and Brendan had been talking about before he'd entered the room--and if it was going to get him into trouble later.

Brendan sat in the room the room he shared with Harper at the SOL headquarters in the underground--old (and mostly abandoned) subterranean housing complexes and businesses, connected to the surface by the (defunct and scrapped) subway system. Harper recognized everything in the room from ratty bedspread to the sound system Harper had built out of salvaged parts. The familiarity of the room made it as good as a password or code for a proof of identity, but they exchanged signs anyway. Brendan looked concerned and worried, and Harper felt suddenly, intensely homesick. "Hey," he said to Brendan.

"Hey," Brendan said back. "You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," Harper said. Tyr quietly excused himself, and left the room, but Harper hardly noticed. "They're treating me okay. What's been going on?"

Brendan made a face. "So far, just a lot of bitching and meetings. There're've been a few Magog raids, and what we're calling 'tentative confirmation' that the stories about the existence of Magog colonies outside the Occupation Zones being true."

"The ubers are actually _admitting_ it?" The Dragans had always claimed that reports of ground-based Magog attacks were actually the result of nests of feral Magog spawned from the occasional fighters that had somehow slipped past the Dragans, which was probably true. They blamed the bigger, more organized raids on the various resistance movements, even when there was evidence to the contrary, or witnesses. Or victims.

"They say there's been a cover-up that they've been trying to get to the bottom of. They want to do flyovers and satellite mapping, and we're trying to negotiate with the other HLA movements," Brendan said, and filled him in on everything that was happening back home. In exchange, Harper told Brendan about everything that had happened over the past few days. "Sounds like they're taking care of you," Brendan commented.

Something about Brendan's tone made Harper look up, look closer, but Brendan's face wasn't giving anything away. Harper recognized the tone though, had heard it a hundred times before, the tone that said, _I wish there was something I could do,_ the one that was equal parts frustration and resignation. Brendan had done his best to make sure Harper and the other kids got an education, but it never seemed to be enough. There was always something more that they were missing, something just out of reach that they couldn't have. "Yeah, well, they kind of have to, right?" Harper said. "Might as well take advantage while it lasts."

"Don't go pushing them, just to see what you can get away with," Brendan said, giving him a look that pretty much confirmed that Tyr and been talking to Brendan about him. "Sometimes that smart mouth of yours says some pretty stupid things, Shay."

"It was more them pushing me," Harper protested. Brendan gave him a look that made him feel like he was seven.

"Don't let them," Brendan said, which was easy for him to say, with him being on the other side of the gravity well. "I'm not telling you don't defend yourself, just don't let them get to you. I need you to stay safe, kid."

"I'll do my best," Harper said. _I need you to stay safe too._

Brendan smiled. "I know you will, Shay. We'll talk again next week."

Harper swallowed, and ignored the surge of homesickness. "Sure. Seeya, Bren."

"'Bye, kiddo."


	6. Interlude: Medea

Medea was the most unconsciously alluring woman Moira had ever seen. _At least, I think it's unconscious, _Moira thought, watching from the food line while the uber found a seat in the mess room. She didn't seem to notice the speculative looks, or the suspicous ones--her demeanor reserved yet unfailingly polite.

The skin of Medea's forearms were smooth and pale, marbled with blue veins. There wasn't even a vestigial ridge or seam to mark where the flaps of tough skin that protected the spur digits and joints would have been. She wore the short sleeved Niet styles as if she were making some kind of obscure point. Moira wondered if a red flush appeared on Medea's forearms at certain times of the month, then felt embarrassed for even speculating about it.

Moira kept her own forearms covered, long fingerless gloves or rags wound like bandages up her arms and over her legs. Common street styles that didn't draw any notice. She'd had eighteen years of experience in hiding under the noses of the Dragans, it wouldn't be any harder to hide right under the nose of Brendan's new "advisor."

Tran dumped an extra serving of Mystery Meat With Noodles on Moira's tray and glared at her. "You skipped breakfast again, Moira," he growled in a low voice. "You trying to end up in the infirmary?"

Moira bared her teeth. "Being fed from a tube would be better than this crap, Tran," she said, but didn't bother protesting the extra biscuits or extra pats of spread, though she did balk at the glass of re-hydrated milk and a little plastic cup of fruit cocktail. "What the hell? Am I a little kid? Are you gonna give me little brightly colored chewable vitamins to?"

"Just reminding you you're a growing girl, sweetpea." Tran smirked at her flush. She had another year before she reached full maturity--and hated being reminded of it. "You're holding up the line," Tran said.

Moira snarled, took up her tray and left the food line. As she did, two cousins and her half brother all took the opportunity to discreetly give her some variation of, "Moira, you shouldn't skip meals, you'll make yourself sick."

No one was particularly convinced by her, "I was up all night and slept in, then went back to work. I just wasn't hungry. I'm fine."

Most of the tables in the messhall were full--except for Medea's. Medea wasn't quite being given the cold shoulder, but she was being given a lot of space. _Looks like I have to make nice. _With a brief request that the Universe stop finding one Moira Rahne Sinclair so damned amusing, she headed over to the table Medea was sitting at. "Mind if I join you, ma'am?" Medea asked.

"I don't mind at all, Mez Sinclair," Medea said with a smile.

Moira set her tray down, and sat across from the Niet. As she did, she noticed that Medea's tray hardly had anything at all on it. Medea had gotten the slightly suspicious meatloaf with reconstituted mashed vegetable and edamame. The serving sizes were about half the size that Moira had gotten.

Moira felt a burst of anger. There wasn't any way that a Niet would have _asked _for such ridiculously small portions. How dare Tran give her a double portion, lecture her, then turn around and short-change someone else! "Ma'am, let me take your tray back--that's not nearly enough food for you--unless you've eaten a full meal earlier today?"

"I haven't, but thank you for the offer," Medea said. "I'll be fine with just this."

Moira gave Medea's tray a doubtful look. Niet and Niet half-breeds had a faster metabolism than ordinary humans, and needed to eat more, and more frequently than humans or risk malnutrition. "If you say so, ma'am." She dug into the contents of her own tray and started to eat.

"I always take nutritional supplements with me when I'm on a mission," Medea said with a smile. "When they run out, the guilt when I bravely faint from malnutrition--never uttering a complaint, mind you--never fails to give me leverage during negotiations."

"And you're admitting this because?" Moira asked. She wasn't sure who to be angry at, the kitchen for short-rationing their new 'advisor' or Medea for admitting that she would deliberately starve herself in order to manipulate them. _She wouldn't really do that, would she? _It seemed like too dangerous a game for an uber to play. One slip and you could end up dead.

"You don't seem the sort of person who would believe in martyrs," Medea said. "Least of all uber martyrs. Am I wrong?"

"No ma'am, you're not," Moira said. "That doesn't really explain why you'd tell me, though."

"Candor can also be used as leverage," Medea said. "If your suspicion that someone is being manipulative is confirmed, are you more, or less suspicious?"

"Depends on the situation, I guess," Moira said. "Probably more suspicious. Because I'd be wondering what they were getting out of it."

"Would you believe them, if they told you?"

Moira thought about that. "I don't know."

"What I want is complicated," Medea said. "You would probably think me a liar if I spoke of it, which is part of the reason why it's complicated. I want Earth to be strong and united, and ally of the League of Iargalon. I want to destroy the slave trade, and I want the Long Night to end."

"You talk a good line, but then, so does your husband and this 'Longinus' guy," Moira said. "But what do you get out of playing martyr?" She glanced down at Medea's tray.

"What do you get out of it?" Medea asked, and took a bite of her dinner.

The Mystery Meat With Noodles curdled in Moira's stomach. "I wouldn't know what you were talking about, ma'am," she said carefully, and set her fork down.

"Don't you?" Medea asked. "The League's information network is very good, Mez Sinclair. Do you really think we wouldn't know you're half-Nietszchean?" A delicate pause. "Of course, I could have figured it out on my own. I'm a bit more observant than the average Dragan soldier. Or I should say, tries not to be."

Sometimes, you could bribe ubers not to notice that a kid had the seam, or the scars. Sometimes you didn't need to. No halfbreeds here, just a bunch of kludges, move along. "So?" Moira asked. She thought about standing up and just walking off, but knew that wouldn't look good. "Having uber genes isn't exactly something you want to advertise."

"Perhaps not," Medea said. "It's not something I like to advertise either."

Moira blinked at that. Medea was dressed in Niet fashions, using a Niet name, and had a Niet marriage bracelet on her arm--oh. "I'd heard you managed to escape the Dragans by passing for human," she said.

"Yes," Medea said with a smile. "I lived as a human for two years before Tyr and Longinus found me. It was difficult at first, but I had friends who helped me."

"Mazel Tov," Moira said. "And now you want kludges and ubers to work together in perfect harmony because you learned important life lessons."

"Does it really sound that ridiculous to you?" Medea asked.

"Maybe it does," Moira said.

"Maybe I want to make it not ridiculous."


	7. Alternating History

Two boys, one Niet, one human, both armed with staves. Enki Parthian looked to have every advantage, and Seamus Harper looked to have every opposite disadvantage. The Niet boy had reach, height and strength on his side, his bone spurs might be covered in order to prevent accidental injury, but that hardly counted as a disadvantage. Still, the two boys faced each other across the practice mat, both listening attentively to Eleanor, who was acting as an instructor for the study group. She corrected both boys stances, then backed off of the mat before giving the signal. The boys came together with a crack of wood-on-wood, and then bounced apart, circling.

Enki was self-assured, moving with the confidence of someone who has had extensive training from the time he was a small child. Harper was more cautious and tentative in his movements--he'd only recently begun the basic staff drills, though he was very agile and quick. Enki slashed his staff toward the smaller boy's shoulder. Harper blocked and brought the bottom end of his staff up sharply. It didn't hit Enki's groin, but it came close. Enki grunted, and decided to take the match seriously after that.

The bout lasted five minutes, and ended with Harper seeming to land hard, then sweep-kicking Enki's legs out from under him when the other boy approached. Eleanor called the match closed, stepping onto the mat to speak to both boys. At one point Harper looked up--and noticed that Tyr was watching him again. The boy's expression was wary and questioning. Questions Tyr wasn't sure he was ready to provide answers for, so he only nodded to Harper and left the training area.

Tyr thought about the differences and similarities between the boy and the man, and of the role he'd been placed in by Shay. Tyr had been sixteen, alone and uncertain--yet determined not to show fear or weakness--and the man had seen right through him. There had been no kindness or comfort then, only awareness, only understanding, and that had been enough. "Your world's gone, and all the people in it," the man had said "If you can survive that, you can survive anything." Then he'd grinned. "Though for the next few weeks, you only have to survive my cooking."

Tyr had been surprised when the slaver's guards seperated him from the lot destined for the mines. He had listened with growing alarm to the guards comments and speculations. He was even more worried when he was taken to the head factor's office--from what he'd heard, private sales usually meant bloodsport of one kind or another--or sex work of a particularly unsavory sort. The man talking to the guard had been short and scruffy, with blue spiked hair, dressed in a black net shirt over a gray opaque one, ragged black cargo pants and a battered leather jacket. Not dressed like a pimp--or at least not like the pimps from vids and holonovels--but not dressed like a respectable person either.

Most of the conversation he overheard from the trader and the man hadn't been very enlightening. The man had only made a few comments about how scrawny the Niet kid was. (He didn't look very convinced at the assurances that "the boy" would fill out once taken off half-rations.) Money and the wand that went with the shock-collar Tyr was wearing changed hands, and Tyr followed the man out of the room and the building.

That was how he'd met Shay, who had done as much to teach him and turn him into the person he was as Longinus had. Now he had to somehow return the favor. _"The boy is not the man, but who the man becomes." _Freya had made that sound so simple--but there was nothing simple about having known the man before the boy. The boy who was so like, and so unlike Shay.

"Look, get it through your head," Shay had said once, after a particularly mind-bending session with Longinus. "You're Tyr. _This time's _Tyr Anasazi. My Tyr, Rhade's Tyr, the Tyr in some other now--is someone completely different from you."

"Who happens to make the same choices," Tyr had muttered. He had always resented how Longinus had always judged him and compared him to the Tyr that Longinus had known. He suspected that Shay did the same, but had never asked him about it, because it was never immediately obvious that Shay had done it.

"Who makes _similar_ choices, kid. Vicky and Barb got together and cooked up a kid they decided to name Tyr. Vicky and Barb's moms and dads got together and made them. Tyr falls in with crazy people and makes the choices he does, and meanwhile a little purple butterfly is flapping her wings like mad and trying to keep things consistant so the people she needs happen, and we all make the choices we make. It's a shit job and not fair to anyone but that's what we got."

_Tyr falls in with crazy people and makes the choices he does. _Tyr wondered what Shay would say about the boy. Wondered what he would say _to_ the boy, were he here and not away.

It had been too long since he'd seen Shay. The last visit had been two years ago, for the last preparations before taking Earth, and for Anne's birthday party. "Try not to get killed, kid," Shay had said with a slight smile. "Excuse me, _Admiral_ Anasazi."

"I will if you do the same, _sir_," Tyr had said. "Longinus has informed me of certain of your armsrunning activities. It's well known that humans are inherently reckless, and inclined to second childhoods, unlike Nietszcheans, who have better sense than to pretend they are still young."

"Oh, ouch. I'll have you know that I had everything under control--"

"Sir, you were nearly ambushed by a Dragan sting operation," Tyr had said with a great deal of asperity. "That is the _antonym_ of 'under control.'"

Shay had laughed at him, of course, and gone on to fill Tyr in on all the things that hadn't been included in Longinus' notice (or Shay's original report for that matter). It had been good to talk to him--Tyr wished Shay were here now, or even Longinus. He wanted advice, or perhaps some reassurance that he was doing what was best for the boy.

As if summoned by Tyr's thoughts the boy made an appearance a few hours later, storming into Tyr's office, where Tyr had been making last minute preparations for the first in-person meeting with Rhiannon. From the datapad the boy was carrying, he'd just come from class. From his expression he was very, very unhappy with one Tyr Anasazi of Kodiak. _I'm either about to be called on for shadowing or--_

"Why am I babysitting your kid, Anasazi?" The boy demanded with a glare.

"Do you have a pressing engagement elsewhere, child?" Tyr asked, his mood lightening considerably. There was something about pushing the boy's buttons that was almost irresistable.

"I have homework!" Harper said, shaking his datapad for emphasis. "I have defense training and a slipstream practical! Why am I also having to babysit your kid?"

"I and Freya have other obligations for the next few days," Tyr said reasonably. "There's no reason you can't study and watch Anne at the same time."

"She's a pest!" Harper snapped.

"Little sisters usually are," Tyr said, remembering a similar conversation he'd had with Shay when he'd been asked to baby sit Beka and her little brother. "Especially when their big brother is so entertaining." Harper usually got along fairly well with Anne, reading to her on occasion, or letting her talk him him into watching children's holovids with her. Tyr thought the objection now had more to do with stress and homesickness than anything else.

Harper flushed and growled something under his breath to the tune of, _not my little sister, you just want a free babysitter._

"If money is truly an issue, we can discuss an allowance later," Tyr offered. It was hard to suppress a smirk as the boy looked away in embarrassment. "Anne is very fond of you. New people do tend to make her act out more, however."

The boy glared at him. "I don't get you at all Anasazi," he said, an almost non sequitur.

"I feel that I 'get you' quite well," Tyr said.

"Yeah?" Harper asked, his tone belligerent and deliberately skeptical.

"I was where you are now, not so long ago," Tyr said. "And there was someone I knew who 'got me' better than I could understand him."

"Longinus?" Harper asked, curiosity overcoming his defensive irritation. He sat down in one of the chairs, balancing his datapad across his lap.

"No, one of his partners, a man named Shay," Tyr said. "Like yourself, he was born on a slave planet. He managed to escape, and became a spacer, eventually joining Longinus' High Guard. He was human, and I had no liking or trust of humans--"

"But he taught you that humans weren't all bad?" Harper asked with heavy sarcasm.

"He taught me that humans weren't any different," Tyr said, amused by the boy's tone. "From him, I learned not to underestimate anyone."

* * *

Since he was watching the kid for the next few days, Harper's classes were held via computer console, with recordings of the lectures, and text message question-and-answer time with the teacher afterward. He was a little surprised how much he missed going to class after only a day or two of watching Anne.

Apparently, "baby-sitting" was a euphemism for "full time day care." No sooner had he agreed to watch Ann, than Elaine and Freya had brought over an inflatable futon, two changes of clothes and pajamas with characters from *Ajax and Alaric* a popular Niet children's educational program printed on them. (Which he only knew about, god help him, because Anne made him sit through the entire first series. He had a feeling that the themesong was going to be earworming him months from now.)

"Harper! Come see the picture I drew!" Anne said.

When Harper looked up, Anne waved the piece of fiber-board she'd been drawing on, and bounced. "I'm in the middle of class, kid--wait till the lecture's over?"

"It's a recording," Anne pointed out.

"Yeah, but--Aw c'mon, not the eyes!" Anne didn't let up on the big sad eyes. _I have no one to play with, and I made a picture just for you, you big meanie, _the look said. Harper sighed, and paused the lecture and stood up. He headed over to the little play-table Eleanor had set up in one corner. He sat down, and took the fiberboard. She'd drawn huge, slightly lopsided pink and blue butterflies, red flowers, and what might have been either a brown rabbit or a dog sniffing (or maybe eating) the flowers. "This one's really nice," Harper said. "Want me to hang it on the wall with the others?"

Anne nodded.

"Alrighty then," Harper said, and took the picture from Anne. He found some double-sided adhesive strips, stuck them on the corners of the picture, then hung it up next to Anne's previous art projects. "Want to watch one of your holos, or draw another picture?" Harper asked.

"Basketball?" Anne asked hopefully. "On the hydro deck?"

"I dunno, kid," Harper said, pretending to think about it. "Organized sports are frivolous and don't teach any--"

"Brother!" Anne stomped and gave him an exasperated look. "Mama and Ama play when they're home!"

"Really? Wow, you're learning all kinds of bad un-Niet habits--" Harper laughed as Anne shrieked a protest. "Okay, okay, we'll go--but! I get to finish my lecture first."

"Okay," Anne said, exactly as if she hadn't been screeching a moment earlier. She went over to her table and started cleaning up without being asked.

Manipulative little--Harper smiled and shook his head. Were all Niet kids like that, or was Anne just an extra special case? He sat back down at the computer console, and played the rest of the lecture.

* * *

When they went to the hydro deck they found that the basket ball court was all ready occupied by Beka and the twins, plus several other girls that Harper didn't recognize. Two were Niet, and one was a halfbreed--her fore arms had the seam, but no spurs. _Unless she's a sport like Tyr's other wife, _Harper thought.

"Auntie!" Anne squealed and launched herself at Beka the instant she caught sight of her.

Beka for her part caught the little girl, and settled her on a hip. "Heeey Pixie-girl," Beka said. "Are you behaving yourself?" She grinned at Harper over Anne's head.

"Yes, auntie!" Anne said in her most earnestly sweet voice. "I've been very, very good."

"Uh-huh," Beka said, amused. "Harper? Is she trying to put one over on me?"

"Weeellll," Harper said. "It all depends on how you define 'good.' Semantics being a tricky business--" He trailed off at Anne's indignant protests. "Yeah, she's been good. And, auntie? You don't look much like an auntie." He wiggled his eyebrows at Beka, who couldn't hit him, because her arms were full of mini-uber.

Ereshkigal was another matter. Eresh got him in a headlock before he could dodge her and started to noogie him death. Harper yelped and flailed but didn't fight too hard, because he was also laughing. Finally she let him go, and he sort of wobbled and sat down hard on the deck. "I surrender, I surrender," he said.

"Sometimes, Harper needs to be put in his place," Inanna said solemnly. "It's our duty to civilize him."

"So I see," one of the strangers said. Her accent was very strongly Martian, and very amused. "Have you been successful?"

"You know, there are _so_ many things I could say right now but can't--" Harper said, levered himself off the ground.

"Good," the girls chorused, much to the amusement of the strangers.

"Harper, this is Nokomis, Eowyn and Tiamat, they're part of Rhiannon's entourage," Beka said by way of introduction. "Ladies, this is Seamus Zelazny Harper, Brendan Sturgeon Lahey's cousin, currently Commander Freya's ward."

Harper tried for a polite if awkward bow. "Pleased to meet you ladies." The strangers were all around Beka's age and maybe a little younger.

"Likewise," Nokomis said. "Have you been comfortable here?"

That was an interesting question. It wasn't the sort of question he'd expect--or trust--from an uber. "Yeah, I should get hazard pay for watching the rug rat though," he said lightly, and grinned at Anne's protest. "She's a perpetual motion machine up to the point where she finally conks out on her futon."

"Small children are like that," Nokomis gave Tiamat an amused look. "I could tell you stories about Tia, for instance."

"Don't you dare," Tia--who was the halfbreed--threatened with a mock scowl. "Just remember I have a few of my own I could share. Like the time you tried to make a model trebuchet and--"

"That was an accident!" Nokomis protested, much to the amusement of Eowyn and Tiamat.

"I want to play basket ball please," Anne said in a very put upon tone of voice.


End file.
